LEFT, TOP TO BOTTOM Paddling downriver with Smokehouse Mountain in the background. It was still all fun and games at this point, but not for long. Spencer Harkins poaching a couloir we snuck up during a brief window of slight visibility. RIGHT Packing up and putting back in after a pretty burly portage. Snowmelt, landslides and downed trees complicated our escape from the Teton Wilderness. THE PLAN TO FLOAT BACK to the trailhead was not only built out of convenience, but also as a proverbial adven-ture hedge. I knew that, at worst, rafting back to the cars would be a decent consolation prize if the skiing was subpar. At best, it would serve as an exclamation point to our adventure. Now, sitting next to the river, assessing a portage that will take hours around a rapid that’s flowing well above our pay grade, I’m not sure what purpose this portion of the trip is serving. I suppose even the best sandbaggers, at times, sandbag themselves. Our exit starts according to plan: The slow-moving river car-ries us and our 80 pounds of gear around oxbows and through pristine meadows. As the river narrows and steepens, the reality of paddling that much gear through consequential rapids and avoiding river-wide downed logs begins to come into focus. Mali is one of few women to run a sweep boat on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River; she’s earned her stripes operating a 22-foot gear-hauling raft with only left or right steering and effectively no margin for error, and done it solo. But even she starts to see the precariousness of our situation. The menacing choke in the river, courtesy of two landslides on opposing riverbanks, seems to be the crescendo of the struggle. Before that crux, Fred and I ferry across the river, opting for the heavily treed, but seemingly more stable landslide to portage. As Fred pulls his boat to shore, he loses his footing on the unstable riverbank, tipping over backward into the water in a Looney Tunes fall that might have been funny in any other situa-tion. What follows is a very warranted series of profanities. Knowing that sometimes the best help is to give someone a moment alone, I leave Fred to collect himself as I scout the portage. What had seemed like a relatively straightforward route from the river is in reality a convoluted mess of lodge-pole pines, trees collapsed atop one another like a pile of several-thousand-pound, barbed pick-up sticks. But there is a way through, and a bright orange can of bear spray on the riverbank reassures me that at least someone had done this before. That comfort is short-lived after I realize the can has its safety off—its contents half-used. By the time I get back to Fred he is in better spirits and Mali and Spencer have joined him. I relay that the route hiking around the rapid is pretty straightforward (it’s not), is only about 100 yards (it’s 200, easily) and should take about five minutes to walk (more like 10, each way). When facing a foregone conclusion, it’s sometimes best to err on the side of optimism rather than accuracy. While we must break our gear into several loads, we make surprisingly quick work of deflating the boats, derigging our skis and packing up, then completing the process in reverse. Back in our boats, things seem to be looking up. The river is mellowing and, with some luck, we’ll be at our cars before the next round of rain hits. Or at least before dark. Teton Wilderness 069
The Ski Journal Volume 15, Issue 1: Page 69
